Four Gothic Novels : The Castle of Otranto; Vathek; The Monk; Frankenstein (World's Classics)
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Macabre and melodramatic, set in haunted castles or fantastic landscapes, Gothis tales became fashionable in the late eighteenth century with the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764). Crammed with catastrophe, terror, and ghostly interventions, the novel was an
immediate success, and influenced numberous followers. These include William Beckford's Vathek (1786), which alternates grotesque comedy with scenes of exotic magnificence in the story of the ruthless Caliph Vathek's journey to damnation. The Monk (1796), by Matthew Lewis, is a violent tale of
ambition, murder, and incest, set in the sinister monastery of the Capuchins in Madrid. Frankenstein (1818, 1831) is Mary Shelley's disturbing and perennially popular tale of a young student who learns the secret of giving life to a creature made from human relics, with horrific consequences.
This collection illustrates the range and attraction of the gothic novel. Extreme and sensational, each of the four printed here is alos a powerful psychological story of isolation and monomania.
Four Gothic Novels: The Castle of Otranto; Vathek; The Monk; Frankenstein (World's Classics),Horace Walpole,William Beckford,Matthew Lewis,Mary Shelley,Oxford University Press, USA,0192823310,18th Century English Novel And Short Story,Fiction - Horror,Gothic revival (Literature),Great Britain,Horror,Horror tales, English,Literature: Classics,19th century fiction,English,Fiction / Romance / Gothic
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